The Devil's Bystander
by DianaHewie
Summary: *Spoilers for Chapter 10 & 11* The "behind the scenes" of the end of Chapter 11


I decided it was best for me to just stay downstairs. A little part of me wanted to go upstairs with them—or maybe sit on the stairs and listen through the door—but I wanted to give Zephyr some space, and besides, I couldn't help but feel like I'd heard enough for today.

Everything that had happened, it was so soon and I never could have seen any of it coming.

Vashyron was probably the better person to deal with it. That wasn't to say that I wanted to just ignore it or push him away, but I was still a stranger to the whole thing. I was the outsider. Vashyron at least knew what it was about. More than I did, anyways.

He was the one that saw the Seminary's destruction first-hand. He had been the one who was hired to kill him. He was the one that saw him survive two bullets to the head.

Just thinking about it sent chills down my back. I had to admit that I didn't know much about them and anything that happened to them before a year ago, but it was still hard to believe.

Zephyr was a killer, and not just a killer, but the one responsible for the biggest tragedy in the city's history.

I didn't iwant/i to believe it, but I knew it was the truth, and it was staring us in the face now.

I knelt down and grabbed the frying pan from the cupboard. I wanted to take my mind off of things, so I figured now would be a good time to try to learn to cook. Someone in the house needed to learn how to do it, and I figured it might as well be me. Neither of the guys ever bothered to.

No matter how hard I tried, it all still kept running through my mind.

iThe destroyed Seminary. The murdered children. The Cardinal showing up here, asking for him. Wanting to kill him./i

I wanted to ask Zephyr about it—I wanted answers, to know why—but I couldn't think of a way that I could bring it up. Not without triggering him again.

I decided it might be best to just let it go, no matter how bad I wanted to know what happened. It bothered him enough already, and it seemed to bother him even more now that I knew about it.

The dials on the stove looked confusing. There were four different ones and I wasn't sure which one did what. I didn't even know what I was planning on trying to cook, considering we didn't have much food in the house to begin with.

I turned the dial on the far left and set the pan on the counter for now. I just wanted to heat the stove up, and I still needed to figure out what I was going to make. My knowledge of cooking was limited. So limited, actually, that Vashyron probably knew how to cook more than I did, but I figured that everyone had to start somewhere.

I heard the thud behind me and I knew that someone had jumped down from the roof, coming in through the short cut. I assumed it was Vashyron, and when I just glanced over my shoulder, I saw I was right.

"Is he ok?" I asked.

"Well, mostly," he said.

I looked back at him. "What do you mean 'mostly?'"

"He's, uh…he's ok. You'd better knock some sense into him, though, before he does anything stupid again," Vashyron said. "I'll leave that to you."

He looked over to see what I was doing, or trying to do. He smirked and walked over to the couch.

"Why? What's wrong with him?" I asked. I looked up through the short cut, but I couldn't see him. I figured he was probably in his room by now.

"He's just, you know, being Zephyr."

I got the feeling that Vashyron was trying to avoid saying something to me.

He looked behind him and saw that I was staring at him. Sighing, he turned back around.

"He still wants to die," he said.

"He what? Is ithat/i what he said up there?"

I looked around for something I could use to "knock some sense into him." A hand across the back of the head wasn't going to cut it this time.

I saw the frying pan—still on the counter—and grabbed it, running for the stairs.

"He said he just wants you to be happy too," Vashyron called after me.

It was a sweet thought, that Zephyr just wanted me to be happy, but he didn't seem to understand that for me to be happy, he had to let go of these crazy suicidal ideas.

I looked over at the clock. Vashyron and I had been dead silent for the last fifteen minutes. Silence was fine, but there was tension in it. Or maybe it was just me.

There were so many things I wanted to know, so many things I still wanted to ask. But I couldn't bring myself to say any of it.

Vashyron was focused on the TV, and it was like he was purposely trying to avoid me. He didn't say anything, didn't look at me, nothing. I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable.

"So, what now?" I asked.

He still didn't look at me.

"Vashyron," I said.

"We'll just have to lay low for a while, and let it blow over."

"You don't think they'll trace it to us, right?"

"It's been over a year now. If they didn't trace it to us by now, they probably never will."

"Not that. I mean the Cardinal."

"Lagerfeld?" he said. "What about him?"

"Do you think anyone will know that we killed him? Or…that I killed did, I guess."

Vashyron was quiet again.

"We were on the rainy bridge. Someone could've seen us," I said.

"Not necessarily. If someone was around there, you would've seen them first. The bridge is pretty open."

I looked down at the floor.

I couldn't remember seeing anyone else there, but at the time, I wasn't really looking. I was too focused on aiming for the Cardinal, seeing him standing there, ready to kill Zephyr. I didn't care about anything else.

"I'm sure everything will be fine," Vashyron said. "Besides, does it really matter to you?"

I felt my face grow hot. "No, it doesn't. He…he deserved what he got…"

It seemed like Vashyron was done with the conversation, and even though I still had so many questions, I was too.

I didn't say anything when I got up and went to my room. I don't know why I bothered going to bed either, because I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep anyways.


End file.
